14.
Be a Nature Detective - LOOKING AT NUTS.
Animals
Nuts attacked by a
if you renember that their drey is untidy, and
so is the work of their teeth. The nuts are
usually broken from top to bottem in irregular
halves and can best be seen with hazel nuts.
Next Field Mice and Voles. Nuts eaten by
these mammmls have an irregular hole bitten in
one side (not top or bottem).
Lastly Dormice. This winter hibernator makes
small round holes on the rounded side of the
nut and think how hard it must be to get the
kernal out!
Birds
Nut shells wedged in a tree in some nook or

cranny are the work of a Nuthatch or a
the rest of the nutshell on the ground.
you find the whole nut in the bark it

with
If
is
probably the remains of an inexperienced bird's
attempt at dining.
Nuts cut clean in half eg. a cherry stone,
are probably the work of a finch with a large
beak (the Hawfinch). This beak is very powerful
and it has to be to crack a cherry stone which
often comes off the better in the jaws of a
human nutter!
by Paul.
An Experiment.
Do some experiments
in your garden this Winter.
Use food colouring to
colour food for the birds
and see if they mind which
colour they take.